I’ve been watching anime in Japan for longer than I’d like to admit.
I didn’t “get into” anime.
I grew up with it.
I watched it after school. On Sunday mornings. Late at night when I definitely should have been sleeping. I bought the manga, argued about it with friends, dropped terrible shows halfway through, and kept watching the good ones long after everyone else moved on.
That was decades ago.
I’m still watching.
And after spending this much of my life on anime, I have opinions. A lot of them.
Some anime that are huge overseas were never that big in Japan. Some scenes Western fans obsess over hit completely differently if you grew up here. Some “hidden gems” on English anime sites are shows every Japanese kid my age already knows.
And sometimes I look at an anime ranking online and think:
…Seriously?
That’s basically why I started OtakuVerdict.
I write about what’s actually worth watching, what isn’t, what Japanese fans really thought about a series, where the cultural context gets lost in translation, which manga is worth reading after the anime ends, and whatever else I’ve accumulated in my head after decades of watching this stuff.
No pretending every new release is a masterpiece.
No rankings written just because Google likes the keyword.
No “Top 10 Anime You MUST Watch” filled with the same ten shows you’ve already seen everywhere.
Just one Japanese anime fan who has watched way too much anime for way too long — finally putting all of it somewhere.
Welcome to OtakuVerdict.
I’ve wasted decades watching anime.
You might as well get something useful out of it.